SciFi

It's still a work in progress, but here it is..

Rose of Jericho by andrew mark bedell

Jackie Tyler felt a twinge in the back of her neck. It was a while before she realised that her eyes were closed. When she opened them she was staring up at a white ceiling, lying on her back on a hospital bed. She tried to s.it up but found that she was unable to move. As she became more and more aware of her surroundings she realised that she was strapped down at the ankles, waist, chest and wrists. At the foot of her bed a male nurse was writing on a chart.
“What’s going on?” She yelled fighting the leather restraints that held her so securely.
“Do you know where you are?” the gaunt looking male nurse asked. “Or how you came to be here?”
“No.” Jackie gasped. “Untie me.”
“I can’t do that. I don’t want you to hurt yourself, or anyone else.”
“I don’t understand.” She gasped. “How long have I been here?”
“Time is of no concern.” The nurse replied. “Everything here is perpetual”
The nurse, whose name she glanced on his badge was Alexander hung the chart on the foot of the bed and left the room, Jackie continued to fight her shackles, but they would not budge.”
It wasn’t long before Alexander was back in the room. He was standing over her bed.
“Time for your medication.” He announced.
“I do not require any medication.” Jackie argued. “I’m not sick. Get me out of these restraints.”
“You are unwell.” Alexander replied with a smile. “The more rapidly you start to acknowledge to yourself the sooner we can start to get you healthy.”
“You cannot keep me here.”
“I’m afraid we can.” Came a female voice somewhere in the room, though from her position on the bed Jackie was not able to get a look at who was speaking. “You are detained under the mental health act.”
“I’m sectioned?” She gasped.
“You have been in and out of psychiatric care all your life. Now come on take these for me.”
“You’ll have to let me sit up.”
“We can’t do that.” The woman replied. “It’s not a risk we can take. You’re a danger to everyone around you.”
She wasn’t getting her point across. They were not going to listen to anything she had to say. She had to get somebody to vouch for her. She gathered her composure for a moment.
“I need to speak to my daughter, or the Doctor.” She demanded. “They will clear this up.”
“You don’t have a daughter.” The woman replied. “You made her up in your mind, as you did this Doctor character”
“No!” Jackie screamed. She paused, scanned the room. “I don’t believe you. I want to speak to Rose. Where is Rose, What’s going on?”
“Try and work it out Jackie.”
The woman stepped forward, now Jackie finally got to see her face, and the badge that carried her name. Lucy Devlin. Jackie gasped, watching Alexander leave the room.

The lights flickered. Everything around them began to grow fainter, the walls, floor, ceiling all becoming white, like they were inside a cube with no windows and doors.
“Maybe this is all in your mind.” Devlin rasped. “Maybe your life is not your own, your mind not your own. Envisage if your whole life had been a lie, an illusion, wired into you from a machine.”
“I don’t understand.” Jackie gasped.
For a while Devlin remained silent. She began to circle Jackie. As she paced about the room Jackie was struck by the stillness, there were no footsteps, no sounds of her own breathing, nothing from the street outside.
“What is this place?” She gasped.
“This is the place where dreams are created. Nightmares too. This is the focal point to your entire existence.”
“I still don’t understand.” Jackie gasped.
“Do you believe that the world exists?” Devlin asked. “All the things around you, the vegetation, the skies, all the populace you have ever known, places you have been. Are they authentic, or are they in your head?”
“Of course they are real.” Snapped Jackie defensively.
“And do you believe in your own existence?”
“Why should I doubt that?”
Devlin snapped her fingers and a chair appeared. She instructed Jackie to sit in it. An unidentified energy pushed her into it when she failed to obey, holding her there. She tried to stand but was unable to move. Devlin walked around her several times, she tried to glance over her shoulder to watch her but was powerless to turn her head.
“How do you know the experiences that you have gained from life have been your own? Let’s say for instance you have been kept in a comatose state and all of your day to day experiences have been fed into your brain by a machine. How about you face facts Jackie, you do not exist in any physical form, and you only exist in a reality created by your own mind, a reality created purely for you.”
“Why would anybody do that?” Jackie asked in almost a whisper.
Devlin snapped her fingers again. An image appeared on the wall, a house, a family were there in the garden.
“Tell me what we’re looking at.” said Devlin coldly.
“My mum and dad.” Jackie replied.
“Nope.” Devlin quipped. With a snap of her fingers the image was gone. “Computer generated images to give you a sense of belonging. Nothing is real Jackie, you are not real. Your life never was. This room is your reality; all you have ever done has been in the confines of this vacuum. You’re not even sitting here talking to me now, things only exist because you believe them to, and you believe them to because the computer tells you to. Are you sitting on a chair or do you just believe you are sitting on a chair. Are you ready for the truth Jackie? Do you want me to show you what your life is really like?

…. She found herself unaccompanied in a small yacht. All that she could see for miles around her was deep-sea. The skies were black and it was starting to rain. A flash of lightning and a rumble of thunder and the heavens opened another flash of lightning, very close, striking the boat and causing a hole. She was filling up with water, going down. She yelled for help but nobody was there to hear her cries. She felt a clammy hand in the region of her ankle, dragging her under water. She held her breath as her head was pulled below the surface, dragging her down deeper and deeper. She opened her eyes, she could see wreckages, ships, planes, the TARDIS, decomposing skeletons clawing at her, pilots still strapped into their seats, people on boats their faces pressed against portholes, all bone, some rotten flesh, riddled with maggots all calling out for her to help. Finally she was on the ocean bed, the Doctors sonic screwdriver lying on the ground. And there before her was her husband Pete’s decayed body. She took a deep breath, her lungs filling with water and everything faded to black.
She jumped up saturated with sweat. She was in her bed; she glanced at the alarm clock alongside her; it was two am. She jumped up quickly, shocked to find her hair and night dress were soaking wet. She rushed to the window and pulled back the curtain, there was no window, just a white wall, and a she turned back around the bedroom was gone too and all that remains was a white room. A shiver ran down her spine. A twinge in her fingers, she held out her hands, they were vanishing before her, her arms too. She was watching herself slowly disappear. She let out a scream, but that vanished the very moment it left her lips.
.